www.taxpayersalliance.com Research Note 56 The Climate Challenge Fund With the Government’s Act on CO2 campaign recently launching a controversial advertising campaign on climate change issues, there is an increased focus on how the Government is engaging with the public over climate change. Public information campaigns – like that warning people about stroke symptoms – can be legitimate. But have climate change communications crossed the line into political propaganda? This note puts recent controversies in context by looking at grants made under the major Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) scheme, the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF). The CCF was run by DEFRA between summer 2006 and March 2008. It allocated £8.6 million to 83 projects across England. It aimed to raise awareness about climate change and encourage certain attitudes and beliefs, such as “climate change is the result of human behaviour”. The information in this research note was provided by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in a response to a Freedom of Information request or obtained through investigation of organisations’ websites. In December 2008, an evaluation commissioned by DECC of the CCF projects was completed. It is still in “the process of being published onto the DECC website” but was again provided in a response to a Freedom of Information request. Key findings § £8.6 million was distributed in CCF grants: £4.7 million in 2006-07 and £3.9 million in 2007-08. § Of that total, £1.9 million was provided to projects explicitly targeted at young people. This may understate the extent of efforts to communicate to young people though, as many other projects which did not explicitly target them made use of activities like music concerts or cartoons that suggest an interest in reaching younger people. £400,000 was distributed to projects explicitly targeted at black and ethnic minority (BME) groups. § The evaluation suggested a number of problems with schemes: they often preached to the converted, there was often little evidence of projects delivering on the scheme’s objectives and many websites were set up but relied “on serendipity to deliver visitors to their websites”. It also suggested that some projects addressed other priorities of organisations receiving grants, and suggested that future funds should avoid “simply providing a way to secure additional resources.” 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 1 § The rest of this research note discusses a number of notable projects funded under the CCF. Notable examples University of East Anglia, From Cromer to Kyoto: a journey discovering climate change and how we can make a difference The University of East Anglia received a grant for £16,245 to promote their findings on climate change and what can be done about it. The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was at the centre of a recent scandal after e-mails were leaked. An Independent Review looking into the scandal has been launched at the university, which will be headed by Sir Muir Russell. The Information Commissioner’s Office have said that, by failing to release data, the head of the CRU – Professor Phil Jones – and his colleagues breached Freedom of Information regulations. CTC Charitable Trust, The Cycling for Women project’s climate film & campaign CTC Charitable Trust received grants of £296,000 which support a “Cycle Hero” campaign. The campaign was initially intended to target female cyclists, but was expanded after DEFRA advised that was too specific. The DECC evaluation sets out how that money was spent: “The Cycle Hero project received £296,000 of funding from the CCF, with a further £280,000 secured in match funding from other sources, including the CTCs own internal resources. The film production and distribution as well as the DVD production and the production of other materials and development of the website accounted for three-quarters of the Defra funding. Around 6% of the funding was spent on events and workshops and another 15% on project management. Around 2% of the funding was spent on PR coverage. It is likely that the cost of the evaluation was covered by the match funding as it does not appear as an explicit item in the CCF6 form.” While the scheme was quite high profile, there are doubts over its effectiveness in terms of achieving CCF’s objectives: “The evaluation showed that awareness had not actually improved, and on some key Defra questions, agreement with the statements had actually gone down.” The central problem appears to have been that the scheme targeted a group already relatively convinced by the messages DEFRA wanted to promote. 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 2 Figure 1: Screenshot from Cycle Hero Figure 2: Screenshot from Cycle Hero Figure 3: Screenshot from Cycle Hero, appears to be based on “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 3 Figure 4: Screenshot from Cycle Hero Forkbeard Fantasy, Invisible Bonfires Forkbeard Fantasy is a company that produces animated films often presented in conjunction with a live show. They also receive taxpayer funding from the Arts Council England. Their work has included films called “The Bonehunter, Worm, Night of the Gnat and The End.”1 As part of the Invisible Bonfires project, which received £77,698 in funding from the Fund, they produced a seven minute animated film about “Carbon Weevils” (or, humans). Two screenshots illustrate the film’s tone and style:2 Figure 5: Screenshot from the Carbon Weevils animated film 1Those titles are taken from an online catalogue here: http://www.forkbeardfantasy.co.uk/new_shop_films.html 2 The video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nALyKU_N5x0 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 4 Figure 6: Screenshot from the Carbon Weevils animated film It was promoted in theatre shows across England, on a DVD and in workshops. The National Energy Foundation, LogiCity – A real-life climate change game... Will you Survive? The National Energy Foundation received grants of £295,000 for two versions of an interactive computer game “illustrating climate change impacts and the effects of society’s an individuals’ actions.” The game appears to have been produced by the firm skills2learn, it is still available online and portrays major fires and floods.3 Figure 7: Screenshot from LogiCity 3 http://www.logicity.co.uk/game/main.htm 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 5 Figure 8: Screenshot from LogiCity Global Action Plan, Making the Carbon Connection Global Action Plan received grants of £49,227 to produce a “unique interactive display”, the “Carbon gym”. This involves “Carbon Weights” to “enable people to feel the weight of CO2 produced by making different lifestyle choices”, a “Carbon Rower” to show people “the volume of CO2 produced through different activities” and an “enhanced “Energy Bike” that “enables people to see how much energy different appliances use.” The DECC evaluation notes that, while Global Action Plan claim to have received positive feedback at their events, the scheme did not appear to have changed attitudes when attendees were asked on an anonymous survey: Global Action Plan (GAP, AE014), for instance, noted in their CCF9 report that, “The evaluation questionnaires have not found a significant difference in attitudes before and after use of the [Making the Carbon Connection] display. This does not seem to match with oral feedback received at events.” Their evaluation results are shown in Table 2 (next page) and appear to bear out their conclusion that attitudes changed little between their pre-intervention questionnaire and follow-up email survey. Pictures of the devices are available on Global Action Plan’s website:4 4 http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/carbon-gym and http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/energy-bike 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 6 Figure 9: Carbon Weights and Carbon Rower Figure 10: Energy bike Yigal Allon Educational Trust, Operation Climate Control Game and Educational Pack for Schools The Yigal Allon Educational Trust received a grant of £49,480 to produce a “fun and engaging multi-player computer where the player’s role is to decide on local environmental policy, and interact with other players to decide global policy.” The game can still be played online.5 The DECC evaluation report suggests that the impact of the scheme was intended to come largely through “pester power”: “Red Redemption [the developers of the game] also recognise that many energy and transport decisions are made by parents, but they feel that educating children has a role to play, because children can use pester power to change their parents‟ behaviour.” The report also suggests that some children were put off after discovering the game was about climate change: 5 http://www.operationclimatecontrol.co.uk/content 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL § www.taxpayersalliance.com § 0845 330 9554 (office hours) § 07795 084 113 (24 hours) 7 “While Red Redemption found that schoolchildren were usually excited about the prospect of playing a game, they were sometimes then disappointed to find that the game was about climate change.” The report says that 1,048 active sessions (games with at least one player) created between July 2007 and April 2008. That implies that the project cost around £47 in grant funding per game played, to which the opportunity cost of class time used to play the game can be added.